Creativity & Innovation Hub

Creativity & Innovation: Top Picks

The creativity success manifesto

Jurgen Wolff

Whether you want to write a best-seller or launch a new business venture, success in any kind of creative endeavour depends on some common factors. Understand these and your chances of hitting the jackpot will be multiplied.

Cultivating a creative workforce

James M. Kerr

We all want to work in a gratifying and stimulating environment – one that brings out the best in us and our colleagues. But how do you cultivate such a work environment? The place to start is by building a creative workforce.

Innovative companies don't fear failure

Brian Amble

The world's most innovative companies welcome and harness failure to help them devise more successful ideas, a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit has found.

The leader's link to creativity and productivity

Dan Bobinski

Far, far too many managers stifle the creativity and commitment of their people simply by the way they behave. But if they started doing more listening and less bossing, employee creativity and involvement might re-emerge.

Proof that innovation pays dividends

Brian Amble

It's often said that innovative firms perform better than their more pedestrian competitors. But where's the proof? And if they do perform better, by how much?

Ideas are fragile (handle with care)

Max McKeown

If someone in your organisation has an idea, is it welcomed? Or does hierarchy, history and organisational politics make innovation impossible?

Old habits die hard, new habits die easy

Max McKeown

Habits are efficient. Without them, we would need to find a response to every situation no matter how many times we had experienced it before. But how do you change an old habit or create a new one?

The four obstacles to corporate innovation

Michael Ellenby

There are four main obstacles to corporate innovation that can stifle the potential of organisations of all sizes. Understanding how to overcome them is key to a healthy future for every business.

Breakthrough innovation and corporate antibodies

Rod Collins

If companies want to be on the leading edge of breakthrough innovation, they have to neutralize the corporate antibodies that try to kill any new ideas that threaten the status quo.

It's not what you know, it's how fast you learn

Rod Collins

The secret to market success in a rapidly-changing world has less to do with what you know and much more to do with how fast you learn.

The future of work is creative collaboration

Eugene Hughes

Innovation is very rarely the result of individual genius. Instead, the biggest breakthroughs occur when networks of people with a collective vision join up and share ideas. That’s why as the fourth industrial revolution unfolds, creative collaborators will be kings.

Opening the Johari Window

James M. Kerr

The Johari Window is a technique that can be used to expose an individual’s blind spots and increase self-discovery. It’s also a useful way to improve team performance and encourage breakthrough thinking.

Encouraging innovation in large organizations

John Brooker

Many large organizations have problems with innovation. So unlocking their potential means understanding the key factors that influence innovation and how leadership behavior influences them.

How to get your ideas adopted

Anne Miller

Nothing is more frustrating than a great idea falling on deaf ears. If this happens to you, don't get demoralized, get smart. To get your ideas adopted, you need a strategy.

All new ideas are made of old ideas

Max McKeown

In the same way nature has mixed and remixed matter to arrive at our current universe, mankind has mixed and remixed ideas to arrive at our current society. So if we want to make the future better, we need to look for new combinations of old ideas.

Swerve and swarm

Max McKeown

You want to know the secret to winning in an age of uncertainty? It's to keep your future open. Planning never guarantees success. Only adaptation guarantees success. Success comes from being confident in your human ability to see opportunity, understand opportunity and grab opportunities.

The dual company

Rod Collins

In today’s world, strategic plans and once-successful business models can quickly become redundant. So how can companies sustain short-term profitability while building long-term innovation capability? One answer is to create a dual company.

Quick fixes can lead to great innovations

Max McKeown

Most innovation is quick-and-dirty. But there's nothing wrong with quick fixes - they point to real customer needs much more accurately than focus groups and reflect new tastes and fashions.

Hire for how they learn, not what they know

Max McKeown

Learning new things is at the heart of innovation. That's why how a person learns is far more important than what they know. So you need to hire people not for what they know now, but because they can adapt to the future.

Employing outsiders: a survival guide

Robert Kelsey

Outsiders can be a manager's worst nightmare. But misfits don't have to be disruptive workplace mavericks. Most are creative, crafty and brave. So rather than try to get rid of them, here’s how to understand what makes them tick and harness their talents.

Leadership, innovation and the future

Duane Dike

Leaders are critical to innovative thinking. Great ideas don't emerge from companies whose leaders try to control and micromanage. Innovation only thrives in organizations whose members are free to think and express themselves.

Parking spots: 6 ways to find space for innovation

Christos Tsolkas

Many people know what it’s like to have a great idea. But putting an idea into practice is something else entirely, particularly if you already have a serious job in a large corporation. So here’s a simple formula for getting yourself or your team to move.

Fish in a different pond

Andy Hanselman

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always had. That why you need to start thinking and doing differently if you want to generate any real innovation.

Cross-fitness for business agility

Christos Tsolkas

Every large organization wants to act more like a startup, but how can they help their people develop the drive, urgency and mental agility they need for a startup environment? One way is to develop a cross training program for business skills.

Cultural intelligence and the power of attention

David Livermore

Giving undue attention to negative feelings shrinks your world and your breadth of perspective. Focus on the positive and you’ll expand your view. This is the power of attention. And in culturally diverse teams, it’s absolutely critical.

If you want to succeed, get used to failure

Max McKeown

Failure is commonplace. Ninety-nine percent of all species and organisations that exist will eventually disappear. Once you accept this and understand that every innovation begins with a series of aberrations, you will be better placed to succeed now and in the future.

The Ministry of Silly Questions

Tim Lambert

Every business has its sacred cows - the ‘no-go areas’ that only the fearless dare to question. But it’s those inquisitive, curious and downright silly people who often stumble across the greatest ideas simply because they’ve dared to ask the questions that no-one else will.

Remember those resolutions you made?

Jurgen Wolff

The chances are that the resolutions you made on Jan 1 are already distant memories. But if you want to avoid making the same resolutions again next year, here’s a simple, four-step process to get you back on track.

The creativity success manifesto

Jurgen Wolff

Twelve ways to cure procrastination

Jurgen Wolff

The number one reason we often fail to achieve what we know in our hearts we could is procrastination. Here are a a variety of approaches to help you confront what can be a complicated beast.

Why people don't want your new idea (and how to change that)

Jurgen Wolff

If you come up with a new idea, more often than not you'll meet tremendous resistance. So here are some strategies to disarm the idea-killers, neutralize the objections and get your ideas taken seriously.

Practice doesn’t make perfect

Jurgen Wolff

Can putting in 10,000 hours of practice make you a master of your craft? Malcolm Gladwell claimed it could, but sadly his assertion simply doesn’t hold water. Practice can’t make up for a lack of natural ability - which is why playing to your strengths is so important.

The truth about failure

Jurgen Wolff

We hear a lot these days about the up-side of failure and how we can learn from it. But failure isn’t such a neutral experience, which is why nobody wants it. So perhaps it’s time we reconsidered our whole definition of what success and failure actually mean.

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More on Creativity & Innovation

Leadership and the curiosity quotient

Michael Hvisdos

Curiosity is one of the most vital - but least acknowledged - of leadership values. It is the catalyst for creativity and innovation, the building block of relationships and the magic ingredient that can lift a business from medocrity to wild success.

Leadership and the beauty principle

Michael Jones

For Steve Jobs, Apple's products had to be beautiful as well as functional. His pursuit of beauty highlights that while power may inspire the mind of a leader, it is beauty that inspires their soul, grips the imagination and inspires what needs to get done.

Soil, growth and the art of conversation

Michael Jones

Like seeds, ideas can only germinate when conditions are right. And while most organizations aren’t short of ideas, they’re much less adept at enriching the soil to enable these ideas grow. What builds this soil is conversation. But not all conversations are the same.

Business blind spots

James M. Kerr

Many breakthrough ideas get ignored because business leaders are unable to grasp concepts that don't fit their expectations of what will work within their firm or industry. So how can we avoid these business blind spots?

Boxing clever

Janet Howd

It's been argued that the invention of containerization led directly to the modern global economy. But it isn't just the packaging of goods that matters. How ideas are packaged is equally important.

Is unrelenting innovation possible?

Gerard Tellis

Why do some great firms fail while others succeed? Why have Sony, RIM, Kodak, General Motors and HP stumbled while Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Samsung have prospered? The answer lies in the great paradox of innovation.

Channels of communication

Janet Howd

Finding ways to make the world more interesting is catching. And organisations that let employees exercise their imagination and speak-out will find many opportunities growing in their own back yards.

China's long march to innovation success

Bill Fischer

China's journey from a seriously poor, insular, economy to the 'shop floor of the world' took a little more than two decades. Today, it appears poised to evolve into becoming a leading global innovator. But can China actually make this next great leap forward?

Great innovations deserve great names

Max McKeown

The name given to an innovation matters. A great innovation may survive without a great name but the name helps - particularly if it is also a product, a service, something you will be trying to sell, something that needs a brand.

Patently absurd

Janet Howd

The deliberate infringement of patents is clearly a legitimate cause for law suits. But we also need to remember that without copying, there is no progress. In nature, the most robust product is the one that survives.

Innovation: getting more from less

Simon Mosey

Getting more from less has been one of the big drivers of invention and innovation throughout history. But what is innovation? What does it entail in practice - and how can organisations build an innovation culture?

Innovation and the readiness to do something new

Edward de Bono

Real innovation implies a readiness to explore and implement new ideas. But many organisations have a deep-seated fear of failure and do not like to try new things, even when much lip-service is paid to innovation.

Cultural intelligence and creativity

David Livermore

Research on individuals who are culturally intelligent reveals that not only are they better at working effectively across various cultural contexts, they are also more creative and innovative.

The idea hunter

Bill Fischer

Most individuals and organizations don't spend much time thinking about how they actually go about generating new ideas. But why are some people and places so much better at generating ideas than others?

A retrospective of the 21st Century

Bill Fischer

Looking back at the first decade of the 21st century, it's hard to avoid thinking that we should be ashamed of how little we have accomplished. But even if we haven't seen much revolutionary change, some vital trends have nevertheless emerged that will shape all of our lives.

Teamwork and creativity

Edward de Bono

Many people believe that creativity should be as free and unstructured as possible. But I would argue that creativity can better be delivered through teams whose function and tasks are clearly and distinctly defined.

The value of collaboration

Bill Fischer

Co-creation is the business idea of the moment. Why? Because the more ideas you can work with, the better. So more minds are always better than fewer, and the more different minds you can enlist, the higher the probability of finding a really different idea.

Management thinking is not all about problems

Edward de Bono

Far too many executives believe that management thinking is all about continuity and problem-solving. But what if something is not a problem?

Innovation lessons from Apple

Bill Fischer

Almost everyone's choice for the most innovative firm of recent years is Apple. But as history shows, it's far from easy to deliver consistent innovation. So what is the secret of Apple's innovation success?

Why intelligence does not equal better thinking

Edward de Bono

Most of us assume that intelligent people are better at thinking. But this is not necessarily true. Just because somebody is good at analysis doesn't mean that they will be good at design thinking or operational thinking.

Looking beyond problem-solving

Edward de Bono

Problem-solving is valuable in itself. But identifying a problem and working to put it right isn't the key to unlocking real creativity. That's all about exploring possibilities, questioning established ideas and looking for value.

Can China's maintain its competitive advantage?

Bill Fischer

Until now, China's competitive advantage has been based on cheap labour, not innovation. But if it is to remain anything more than a low-wage producer, China has to find innovative ways of sustaining growth.

Leadership and the need for creative thinking

Edward de Bono

It's no accident that business is more interested in thinking than other sectors of society. It is because business has a reality test. There is a bottom line. There are results. And better or more creative thinking will result in more profits or market share.

From blind spots to strategic intelligence

Bettina Büchel

Nothing breeds success like success, the old proverb goes. But this is not always the case when it comes to business growth. Many organizations become victims of their own success. They achieve rapid growth by introducing new products but quickly find that they cannot sustain this for more than a couple of years.

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Improving, not inventing: the secret of China's success

Bill Fischer

China is affecting the way global business operates and the way value-chains work. In particular, it is changing the speed at which business is done. And to do this, it is concentrating on improving, rather than inventing.

The power of proactive thinking

Edward de Bono

Every organisation can benefit from some deliberate thinking. This isn't the thinking we do when we are sitting at a desk or taking part in a discussion. It is a formal process designed to generate new ideas and perceptions, and to take action around any possibilities that exist.

How new ideas can challenge complacency

Edward de Bono

If you want to challenge complacency in an organisation, you need to make a strong case with strong ideas. Simply claiming that 'things could be better' is too vague.

Business improvement ideas: working in groups

Edward de Bono

Original thinkers ought to have the courage to pursue ideas on their own - even when those around them are negative. But there are some situations where groups can be helpful in coming up with ideas to improve the way a business operates.

Open spaces, open minds

Max McKeown

I'm often appalled at the physical spaces and meeting formats in which people are meant to open their minds, solve problems and inspire progress. Desks are for filling in forms and filing papers – not for creating, thinking, making, learning, or collaborating.

Creative thinking beyond the main track

Edward de Bono

More information does not in itself produce new ideas. Neither does more analysis or more logic. That's why there is a real need to develop the skill of creative thinking.

Creativity is easier when it's structured

Edward de Bono

There is a mistaken belief that there should be no restrictions or barriers around creativity. But in reality, creativity is easier if there is some structure. The introduction of focus actually enhances the process.

Reinventing the wheel

Max McKeown

It's easy to think that something is so simple that you couldn't improve it or so low-tech your intellect would be wasted even thinking about it. But you'd be wrong. Because anything that is invented can - and often should - be reinvented.

Focusing on problem-solving can lead to complacency

Edward de Bono

When things are going smoothly and there are no problems, people are fooled into believing there is no need to think. So they are lulled into a state of complacency – and continuity does not produce new ideas.

Business ideas, design and judgment

Edward de Bono

For most aspects of life, judgment is crucial and extremely useful. But judgment on its own isn't enough. Rather than accepting or rejecting an idea, you need look at business ideas in order to 'see where you can move to'.

Innovation through creativity

Edward de Bono

There are many myths about creativity. A major one is that creativity is a mysterious talent that some people have and others can only envy. But anyone can learn and practise the thinking skill of creativity.

How lateral thinking can help us find better ideas

Edward de Bono

The whole purpose of lateral thinking is to allow us to cut across patterns and to find new ideas. As with all creativity, the ideas must be valuable and logical in hindsight.